An Ikebukuro Obuzaba
by AcesandReds
Summary: An observer who lacks empathy. A megalomaniac human-extraordinaire. An ex-bartender with extreme anger/strength management issues. A headless biker. Color gangs. Incest siblings. Demented relationships. A two-faced mask. Russian sushi - Point is, Ikebukuro will always be colorful to an Obuzaba. Canon, pairing undecided.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Don't own Drrr!**

**A/N: I won't make this long - review, fave and/and do read. Would appreciate much if you point out unnecessary flaws in the canon characters. **

**This will closely follow the canon manga/anime (but will still _surely_ have a twist to it.)**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Observe Before You Glance**

Ikebukuro looked fairly normal.

It was the same plethora of neon-adorned buildings in Japan with the same stereotypical inhabitants with thick, native Japanese accents.

She tilts her head upwards; It was relatively the same bland night sky she'd seen back in New York.

If she closed her eyes and blocked out the sound of everything Japan-related, she could pretend for a moment she was back in the States. Not that she was being melodramatic but because the familiar resemblance was stark.

Just then she hears the faintest sound of something large hitting and metal scraping against something, but she couldn't be too sure.

It could just be the wind.

She gauges the people around her, all walking and ignoring her, some occasionally even bumping into her, giving her the glare that was either supposed to mean _get_ _out_ _of_ _the_ _way or _just _tch, t__ourists._ All glares but no words, but she steps to the side anyway - after all, actions speak louder than words, and there is still the fact that somebody might just do that later.

She takes in the general appearance of what she sees - a sea of a dark-haired, light-skinned, asian-eyed crowd and her fingers briefly wander to a stray platinum lock, conscious and aware of how it would contrast against the dark picturesque around her.

From the corner of her eye, a blue-haired girl dressed in doll's clothes, _a_ _lolita_, passed her.

She curls the lock of hair around her finger, a ghost of a wry smile on her lips. She almost forgot anyone can get away with anything appearance-concerned in Japan and thus, that one sensitive thought is immediately banished away. Her attention is beckoned to the sign above, _Seibu_ _exit_ it says - this should lead her to Sunshine street, no.. 60th street? Well, she'll find out later.

Her steps fell in with the crowd, dull and mechanic, and her hands instinctively dig in at the corner pockets of her jacket, right hand instinctively fisting over a cool, smooth, squarish material.

She meets up with a fellow blonde (she had the tiniest suspicion it was dyed) chatting with, what looks like a long time friend, along the way.

"...make conversations with almost any other girl.."

She whips her phone out. Time to meet Nakura.

Out from her line of vision and knowledge, a pair of scopes was insistently fixed on her person, with the same pair of eyes on said scopes just as lazily transfixed on said figure.

Orihara Izaya smiles, enigmatic and chronological. As if he knew what the fates were playing at, but that would just be contradictory -

After all, he was the fate in his own game.

He places the scopes on the table with a soft thud. A hand then spins a phone on the table, patiently caressing the polished, metal refurbishing of the gadget while the other pair clenches a switchblade on the underside of his jacket's right pocket. All with certain deftness that would lead an observer to believe this was a daily occurrence, a mannerism, on Izaya's part.

Too bad they were too busy with their lives to actually care about observing a stranger's familiarity with a blade. Not that Izaya cared, it was convenient and superior that way, to be the observant one behind the ignorant.

A slight buzz from his mobile doesn't even startle him, instead he leans over with an offhanded, 'Eh, that soon?' and expectantly opens the message. He wonders how he would play his victim tonight.

**_Where_ _should_ _we_ _meet_?**

A twinge of pity and sadistic euphoria evades his senses. To be caught in a spider's web, and never getting out, that should feel terrible at least. On the victim's part.

He types a quick, short reply because he doesn't want this precious human (all humans were precious with the exception of Heiwajima Shizuo, he wrinkles his nose in distaste at this) getting impatient because of him.

**_Are_ _you_ _ready_?**

He lets out an inward chuckle. As if she had the option not to be ready.

She was miles away from New York, away from her family, who, according to her, ignored her part of existence in the household. Even more, she had the steely resolution of suicide, driven by depression, loneliness and the like. Izaya could even come up with a bucketful of other reasons she wouldn't go back to her life (pun intended) and continue with this.

And she trusted him. How.. _contrite_.

She replies with an expected _yes_ and Izaya goes on further telling her he'll be coming to pick her up.

He proceeds to text tonight's 'Nakura'.

D

**_Pick_ _her_ _up_** - the reader gruffly glanced at the bold, illuminated letters on the screen. He grunts, _why that little shit, ordering us around when we can beat the life out of him._

But they wouldn't. The promised pay was good, and money is essential in Ikebukuro, especially for those who want to thrive and be dominant. They would just have to work their way up, even if it means settling with the dirty methods, and acquiesce to their client's request. But that son of a bitch should better show up later.

"I'm picking up the package."

Two other guys in the van nod their assents. _Be quick, I'm hungry_, one said and an imaginary vein animatedly pops out from his temples.

He exits, "Who gives a fuck about you being hungry," before quickly disappearing to the town district's familiar night. How many times had they done this? He'd lost count. Not that he cared, sentimentality was not part of the job when it's about survival.

He arrives at the presumed spot his client had told him where a mop of blonde, almost platinum, hair of a girl in her teens would be waiting for him. He sees her in one scout of the area, it wasn't hard really with that kind of hair color. But then he'd seen more bizzare and stupid renditions of hair color in Ikebukuro anyway, so it wasn't anything new. He was four steps away when she finally noticed him. He noticed the wariness she directed at him, _smart girl_. Though it wouldn't help relieve her case now.

He smiles at her, a certain fakeness indiscernible to the naked eye, after all, he had been in this job for quite some time.

_I should be awarded a -, what is it in America? Oh right, a fucking grammy for this._

Either way, he noticed this seemed to cajole her a bit and all that was left, he thought, were the magic words.

He adjusts his glasses perfunctorily, "Ne, Scarlet-san?"

Like how a lock clicks into a place, he couldn't help observe the change in how her defences crumbled to dust and how her expression was now portraying open trust when it was almost glaring at him minutes ago.

All of the sudden he feels a rush of hatred and surge of sympathy for the female race, but he continues smiling anyway, spewing convincing lies (even to his own ears) how there were people waiting for them at the van and that they should go now. He was getting rather impatient.

She agreed, even adding the customary bow and 'please take care of me', sparing him any trouble. Minutes later, they were riding the van towards the drop-off, girl gagged and unconscious on the van's back floor.

He whistles, claiming the attention of the other guys in the van, "Oy, maybe we should stop by that Russian sushi shop after this, eh?"

R

Shinra didn't know what Ikebukuro would think when they found out the headless rider was a girl, let alone the fact that she's also his roommate - Celty Sturluson, a dullahan struck with amnesia and in constant search for her missing head.

They would probably have a lot of questions, he pondered. First, they'd wonder about how she lost her head, with the connection on how she could breathe, much less eat. All these questions wouldn't be even answered by Celty, they'd probably run away from fear or the fact that Celty simply doesn't know the answers to these questions herself.

But more of the latter, Shinra thought. People in Ikebukuro have a penchant for all things mysterious and dangerous.

A creak startles him from his reverie and Celty comes into view, dressed in her suit and helmet in tow.

"Oh, you have a job to do?" He asked, mildly surprised. Her work schedule was lax the past week, but he shouldn't be surprised, this was Ikebukuro after all. Anything could happen.

_**Yes**_, she types on her PDA. Since having no head rendered her physically speechless, she had to resort to typing on her phone. The curious part of it all was how she could hear and see him clearly.

He'll probably dig in to that later. "Be careful though, Celty."

She shows him the PDA and all Shinra could think at the moment was how fast of a typer she was(was that in a second? ) _**I will. The job's not too much of a hassle anyway**,_ it says.

He nods, "Alright. See you later then."

_**Ja ne**_, she types one last time on her PDA before barging out of the apartment.

Shinra hears the telltale sound of a horse whining before it disappears completely. He adjusts his glasses before opening his laptop.

"Now about that black dust.."

R

She was never adept at predictions, or even calculations. If anything, she skewered them past to the point of irregularity and incorrectness. That's why she never bothered, and just let the course she's treading flow on naturally. Though, at the moment, she couldn't deny that she was in trouble.

Imaizumi Yuzu was screwed, more precisely.

The van jerks and her head slightly bumps on the floor. She avoided sniffing the carpet, or risk passing out again. Wisps of uneasiness begin to blossom - her rope-tied wrists ached and she was in an uncomfortable position for too long.

How could it come to this? She had the intention of coming and leaving Ikebukuro in one piece from the beginning.

Nakura was the only person who knew she was coming. Could it be part of some scheme then? Or did she just singlehandedly offer herself to a deal she wouldn't be able to wrestle her way out through?

If that was the case, then she would die here, unceremoniously and unknown, on the shady part of Ikebukuro. _There could be worse_, her inner conscience berated and she instantly feels a steady rise of panic in her throat, _you could either be sold as a slave or a sex slave, or your insides individually gutted out and sold to the black market but not before they rape and make you deal through hell first._

_Kuso_. She was never one to swear, but now that the situation was out of hand, all medium of organized thoughts were thrown away from the window and burned to the ground for good.

She wiggles, only slightly as to not draw the kidnappers' attention to her. It was better if they think she was still asleep. Her hands softly bump with something cylindrical on the front side of her jacket that was now laying haphazardly across her back from the struggle before.

Her pepper spray.

She grits her teeth softly. She wouldn't be able to aim at the eyes, lest outmaneuver them because she was lethargic from the substance they made her inhale and her wrists were bound, not to mention they outranked her in strength and number.

Her shoulders slump in dejection. She would have to wait for an opening and a distraction.

The van comes to an abrupt standstill and her instincts told her they were here, that she was going to die sooner now than later.

A man coughs from beside her, "I don't see him anywhere."

_Nakura_ interrupts, "He'll be here. He better be."

Oh. So she would be sold.

"Tch. That bastard better be quick." A raspy voice joins in, only that it sounded a bit farther away this time, which made her come up with an assumption he was talking from the driver's seat.

"Hn, I'll check outside."

There was the sound of something metal being taken hold of and the van's back door being opened. A blast of cool night air greets her lungs and she never thought air could have smelled this fresh and needed.

Maybe it had something to do with her current predicament.

"Someone's here. Huh, dumb bastard, he's even alone."

"Maybe we can sack him. He looks harmless enough."

She hears footsteps and another door being opened.

"Oy. You one of the higher ups?"

There was silence from the other person. Her ears perk up and she could dimly detect the mishap in the situation. Yuzu's fingers pricked for sensation and movement.

Anytime soon.

"Hey, you don't have to be so rude."

It was silent. The sudden scraping of metal on the surface of the ground sounded both like impending doom and ethereal to her ears.

"Tch. You see mister we're kind of busy, so why don't you do us a favor... and die!"

That was her cue. She fights with the strains around her wrists roughly. There would be bruises there tomorrow, but that was better than not seeing the light the next day. She hears something being slammed on something hard and she knew she didn't have enough time. This person could either be a samaritan or altogether another darker persona from Ikebukuro. She wasn't taking chances.

She wriggles with the ropes, desperately, hastily. When she finally felt a loose knot, she starts tugging her main hand, the right one, free.

It stung she noticed, as her now unbound hand grabbed for the thick strap of cloth blinding her vision and gagging her mouth. Her ears strain for the sound, any sound, happening outside.

It was silent once again.

She propped one elbow on the dirty floor, steadying her feet, physically readying herself for a sprint. The sole of her sneakers did not make soft crunching sounds against the van's carpet. She was grateful for that, but she needed to be quick.

Time was not on her side.

She climbs as silent as she can through the small opening between the two front seats, aiming for the door let ajar beside the driver's seat. The van's back door had firmly shut again from the earlier commotion. It was too open anyway, they'd see her. If they were still conscious.

Her feet connects with the cold ground, and her eyes dart around the scenery cautiously, momentarily adjusting to the dark. There was blood on that wall, a person slumped below it and another unconscious figure beside a pillar. A bike's steady engine reverberated, almost humming, across the, she looks around.. parking lot.

She should be afraid, but adrenaline was a good fear sizer. Still, it did nothing to soothe her clenching stomach insides.

"..W-w-wha-what.. hell... are you!?"

She looks to the left - the exit, before a hollow scream suddenly pierces through the air. She runs towards there, missing the fact that the scream came from that direction. She'd have to improvise her way out then.

She hid behind a solitary bush, arriving just in time to see a person in a black suit put a worn-out, yellow helmet back on and she barely registered the fact that.. it had no head?

Ikebukuro was fairly normal; Nothing that superstitious should exist.

A man is kneeling before the masked stranger but she couldn't recognize what was happening from her view. The masked rider turns towards her direction and her body freezes deliberately.

It was a silent night. If anything, it looked like any other normal night in a city. But then people tend to disassociate the bland, normal things and the darker, hidden side to these. Inevitably, no one wants to be in the shade.

The figure abruptly whips a gadget from somewhere from his suit, it was a cellphone, she assumed since he begun pressing his fingertips with precision on its surface.

He had the elegance of a woman.

The stranger holds out the PDA for her to see, the text were glowing, readable in the dark and even if she pretended to ignore it, this stranger already knows she's hiding, simpering, behind a lone bush located on the sole road connecting the parking lot's exit and the city of Ikebukuro.

She focuses her attention on the words in the screen.

_**I'm not going to hurt you Scarlet-san. I'm here to take you somewhere safe**_.

A promise of security will always sound tempting to the ears.

"Did the real Nakura sent you?" She voiced out, emerging from the bushes.

The figure hastily types on the PDA before holding it in front of her.

_**Hai**_. The gadget says simply.

When Yuzu remained silent the rider typed five more words on the screen.

**Hai. Will you come with me?** It now read.

Yuzu Imaizumi looked him squarely in the eye.

"Okay. Take me to Nakura."

They both went back to the dully lit parking lot, beyond the deserted van and towards the black motorcycle. Neither paid attention to the bodies sprawled on the floor nor attempt to do anything about it. She was a victim and the other was a righteous vigilante, there was no room for affiliation with the wrongdoer.

She hears one last vague whining of a horse as they sped through the streets of Ikebukuro and disappeared all together through the mass of vehicles and misty night air.

R

The moon was shining brightly over Ikebukuro, lighting even the most shadow-clad alleys in the city.

Although, Izaya knew it wouldn't do anything to cleanse the city of its hidden darkness.

He holds a certain inquisitiveness for the color scheme - White was good, black was evil, and he wonders, vaguely, if the world were to be judged on a monochromatic scale, then Ikebukuro should be in total darkness.

And the moonlight shouldn't be so delicately ghosting over his face.

He wasn't a saint, nor a guilty person. Was he even a person? He sometimes ask himself this, amusement coiling on the edges of his lips.

No, definitely not. For to be above all, one must face the monochrome quality of every situation, to learn how to digress two different commodities from one another, and most of all - to manipulate these forces, because in the end, there could only be the good and the bad.

Humans are a different matter entirely though. No human baby was born a saint or a demon, not even when they grown up do they be divided into white or black; for Izaya, it was the actions, the decisions, that decides the ultimate class of one self's humanity. This is why to Izaya, it was so enthralling seeing them spin on their wobbly knees; to be the master puppeteer over a living, feeling human. To see them contradict their actions with their emotions and principles, and then again, he concludes, the mind and the heart are two other equal opposing, separate entities that would also lead to a man's downfall. Izaya could see it everyday unfolding in front of his eyes on the very streets of Shinjuku, after he finished twisting them, emotionally, physically, even intellectually.

For tonight though, that spotlight would be in Ikebukuro.

He sees her, finally. Izaya was almost getting bored.

Almost.

She takes tentative steps across the elevated platform. Delicate. Careful. As if one misguided topple would send her flying down and dead, which it would. As if she'd forgotten she flew all the way from her home to embrace death from a rooftop, on a city she barely knew, with a person she barely knew existed.

_Ehe, so predictable._

He leans on the railing, her back to him as her fingers coil around the smooth surface of the only object separating her and the drop.

He could make her fall with one fluid push of his hand, and then pull her back again just to see the mushy, turbid emotions lurking behind her irises. The eyes were always the mirrors of the soul, this Izaya believed. The ones reflecting a human's weakest and deepest sentiments and apathy.

He figured from the start the girl wouldn't do it.

"Oh?" He begins, making her turn back to fully face him, "What are you waiting for?"

He jumps from the railing with all the prowess and flexibility of a cat.

"Did you lost the courage to do it?" He continues, walking smoothly towards her while stuffing his hands inside his jacket's pockets. Once again, his right hand claims the switchblade beneath it.

He halts, near enough for her to see him clearly but far enough to avoid physical contact, "Or, did you finally realize your life was worth it?"

Izaya sees a tint of confusion flash before the girl's eyes, followed by understanding then recognition.

She shifts in her footing, almost awkwardly. Head slightly bowing in the action and eyes at everything but him. Then she speaks, soft with a certain neutrality that slightly irked him. He wanted a show of emotions.

"Actually, Nakura-san..." she pauses, willing herself to look him in the eyes.

Because he needed to see the clear truth in her eyes to convince him.

"..I didn't come here to die."

He slightly raises his eyebrows at this, face all the while indifferent because if anything, Izaya was the king manipulator of emotions. He couldn't deny it surprised him though.

It thrilled him.

She was new. New was good, but she didn't have to know that or see it in his face. It also, however, meant on Izaya's part that he was going to rebuild his views and thoughts about this human again. It also meant that she was a liar throughout the whole time. But that was alright, because it took the mundane cycle of normalcy in humans he frequently observed.

His eyes travel down, to the angry red mark on her wrists and a quirky smile tugs on his lips.

"You must have been afraid then. After all, you never had the intention of dying, but then you get kidnapped."

"It must have made you think you just had singlehandedly offered yourself to a deal you wouldn't be able to wrestle your way out, no?"

Her eyes widen.

Bingo.

"..but you did." He finishes for anti-climactic purposes.

There was a short silence between both of them before, "So it was part of your scheme all along.. why?"

"I love humans." He answers simply.

She points at him, "You're a human too."

He felt like laughing. She was kawaii being stupid and pointing the obvious like that, "Oh, Scarlet-chan."

He pats her in the head and he was satisfied and miffed at the same time when she didn't flinch one bit.

Did she just ignored the fact he got her kidnapped?

He takes her hand and excitedly ushers her to the other side of the railing where there was an adequate space for both of them to stand. Her foot remains on the floor.

Izaya tugs on her wrist, purposely applying pressure to it. Only delicately.

"What's wrong? Don't you trust me?"

His hand tightens around her sore wrist infinitesimally but it still makes her wince slightly. Izaya smirks at this.

"No."

So blunt. So honest. She was sharp like diamonds, it made him want to see her blood splat with the other red a number of feet below the rooftop. But it wouldn't be grand if he would just let this piece disappear now.

It would meant he lost his patience.

With that, he lost the game.

And Orihara Izaya never loses.

He smiles, fake and empty. "You're a smart girl. Would you grace me then with the reason why you're here?"

Izaya always did the predicting, after all, it was his forte. To rip mask below mask from a human till he could see the ugly side of truth there is to them. Though this time, he wanted her to surprise him.

Yet again.

"I'm an observer."

_Eh?_

"Then you must be a dense observer if you wanted to go this far. To go through the danger and trouble just to get here and then what?"

He releases her hand, his own hands finding solace back in the insides of his black jacket.

"Persuade the other person you met who wanted to commit suicide not to do it? Or.."

Dark eyes narrow at another pair of lighter eyes, a hint of amusement glinting at them, "You were just really bored."

"No, I only came here to observe." She repeats her claim yet again, neither confirming or denying the fact. But to Izaya, it was as good as the latter already.

Observe, _my ass._

"Is that the only reason you're here? To observe?" The word tasted sour on his lips.

He was supposed to be the observer and her, the object to be observed. Him, the only observer.

Observers don't analyze each other, anyway.

Or do they...

"So you'd let them plummet to the ground then?"

Her gaze hardened, from being defensive or just for the sheer action of glaring at someone when being accused or both, "It was their decision in the end. Who are we to tell them what to do? Even people like us-"

Izaya badly wanted to interrupt that there was no 'us'.

"- don't know anything about what's better and what isn't for them."

He claps his hands together. _Finally_! He wanted to remark how she had said something else entirely other than the words 'observe'.

He says it anyway.

Then, "But Miss Scarlet.. aren't you being a little selfish just by standing there and doing nothing to prevent this person's death?"

He does this all the time.

"Do you think about this person's loved ones, how they would want them back safely and how they would also think of how selfish you are for not stopping that person from dying?"

He thinks of all these things every time his victims send their selves to their untimely death.

"Or that you're doing the world a favor by being a saviour - Painting a stroke of white against the black backdrop and saving a life?"

He did.

But Orihara Izaya was never a saint and he never regretted any of his actions.

She looks at him plainly, breathing loudly. Almost looking like she found the whole ordeal tiresome.

Izaya did not want to be taken lightly.

"You speak as if you've experienced these things first-hand." She says quietly.

Izaya smiles; she continues,

"It's the person who's thinking about suicide who needs to think about the concern of their loved ones. To be the ones to weave their own reasons to contradict their actions.

"There's nothing selfish in it because It's not our call... It's not your call."

Izaya smirks at her, approving and amused. If anything, she was a mini Orihara. Only she possessed a nonchalant understanding on all things interesting for him. However, one thing he knew was that she would never become anything like him - a human-lover extraordinaire.

"You're wrong," He counters.

They could do this all night.

"You're being selfish at best because decisions, in order to bloom fully and concretely, must be influenced. Influence gives the idea that becomes the seed. These people are beyond helping, you see. They are so driven by their lust to end their suffering that they do not see the point that the option of suicide his illogical, definite and cowardly-"

He takes two steps so that it was only the railing left to separate them.

"And that there is no escape from this shit hole we call our world."

He fixes her with a challenging stare, daring her to contradict him, but she remains silent. Slowly, he places both his hands at either side of her shoulders.

This time she flinches.

"That is why it's also our call."

She barely reached the tip of his nose, and the difference in height should intimidate her. There was always this unspoken idea when standing next to someone who's taller than you - and it was the thought of inferiority.

To feel small and vulnerable and crushable.

But her attention's somewhere else - to the dark, dark eyes of this person and she sees for the umpteenth time that night the void of an unending obscurity in those eyes. That and the indefinite darkness it possessed both physically and emblematically.

For once, height did nothing to scare her.

Pure tendrils of fear begin to creep in - bells were steadily ringing in the back of her head because she should fear this person. And she did.

The interaction was broken. She was running; her footsteps, this time, creating loud disturbing noises in the silence of the night.

He let her.

They both knew he'll find her again

* * *

**_You reap what you sow._**

**Reviews please. Ace**


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Don't own Durarara!_

**A/N: So this chapter's mostly filler and shorter than I liked It to be. Obviously not satiable for me.**

**Anyway, I hate typing when my computer decides to become laggy to I'll leave the reading and comprehending to you~**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Hamartia**

Intuition-

It could be instincts, solely. A preemptive cognitive ability to assess a situation. A distinctive penetration of insight. A succinct comprehension even in taciturnity with one swipe of the brain. A brusque premonition of events.

What to do.

How to react.

This was Yuzu's holy grail; the armadillo of her life as an observer.

Intuition wasn't anything like planning, because planning required a vague estimation of events. To know things beforehand, prediction or augury. Intuition was another thing though.

If words have a physical embodiment, then planning would be a gun and intuition the bullet beneath the revolver.

We aim before we pull the trigger, ergo this distinct pause in action, but a bullet- it has no stops. No red light controlling over it because it is sharp, quick and immediate. Intuition is immediate. It hits you in the head like a brick without you even thinking about it almost on the process going for your skull. But to release the bullet, you'd have to pull the trigger. To pull the trigger, one must acquaint oneself first _when_ and _where_ and trouble his head with the _whys_ and _how will this end._

It was her ultimate demise.

Sometimes though, intuition comes as an unexpected surprise attack. Like in one normal, sunny but still cold day in New York, to the red hackneyed mailbox outside the Imaizumi residence, to a large, bland-looking manila envelope jumbled beneath other white parchments.

It suddenly appeared to her there, a secluded but distinct voice telling her what to do, _to take the blunt_, when she was skimming through photos of her otousama and okaasan.

Pictures that didn't show any of them together.

When she placed the final glossy photograph, a man and woman she knew all her life on either both sides of the paper with someone else she didn't recognize separated by a white line, to the back of the pile, she sees a note there. Still crisp like the handwriting on it, austere like the message it contained.

**_This is afflictive and unforgivable._**

She knew along, even before this unlikely stranger deposited this bulky envelope onto her family's mailbox and graced her with the reminder. Still, even if she stared at the note passively all day long, to pretend as if it was nothing, as if it wasn't anything emotionally decisive and scarring and true, a familiar, frequent hollow feeling in her chest won't subside one bit.

Concealment comes with a price. Maybe to truly be ignorant one must first be plagued with the sentiments of the object we do not wish to divulge in.

Pushing it away won't do good either.

So instead of tossing it to the nearest trash bin, or burning it to ashes, she bought it inside and hid it in secrecy between the line where the cold tiles and soft cotton of her mattress met in her bedroom. So when she slept at night, she would know the pictures were being crushed by her weight and thinking.

She preferred not over analyzing it was the other way around.

She met Nakura on a forum, days into the city's Summer Solstice (her mother was showing off her swimsuits) and weeks after the mail, while she was chewing on a pack of Lays, which were salty potato chips her dad bought her the other night.

It was on a website for people who wanted to commit suicide together.

Fleetingly, they both exchanged numbers and email addresses and fell to a daily, synchronous routine of communicating each other electronically. She introduced herself as Scarlet, told this stranger she was from New York, and that she had this tiny, immaculate yet persistent idea about wanting to disappear from this world. She spewed the basic details of her reason- both her parents were in separate affairs which left her sputtering and drowning on deep, mundane waters of confidentiality she'd come to associate alone for her life. She doesn't even exclude her insipid grandiosity on the social hierarchy.

She was being honest, blindly honest._ Scarlet was, not Imaizumi Yuzu_, she'd silently reprimand herself.

Nakura asked her why she kept it a secret. She told him simply that she didn't want her parent's relationship be severed, and that she wanted everything to be 'normal', to be sitting on their dining room's Victorian chair dining over the same table she'd grown accustomed to for years while she listened to her parents bicker about the weather tomorrow or the occasional argument about the stock markets.

_**The needy cling to desperation.**_

She still leaves the part where she knew everything all along, even before the mysterious package.

She was pouring out so much to him that she thought he finally felt the need to tip the scales to balance when he also told her his predicament, which also instigated angst in his life. That they were undergoing the uncalled, tedious repercussions of the misdeeds of someone else they loved; they didn't deserve the pain and that she was also like him, betrayed uncouthly to the point of damnation. Driven to the hallucination of a better place after a ludicrous suicide.

To disappear without a trace - it was also an insane idea of revenge.

It will always be like that to Yuzu - an insane idea that would never morph to her reality.

Sometimes, her mind would briefly wander to the night her uncle had berated her about suicide.

_Suicide is the most selfish act of humanity."_

He was philosophical and an optimist who saw, created principles, and debated about the Sunnyside of life. He insisted depression was an asshole, or figuratively feeble chains which bind the steely resolution of a man to happiness, and that they were breakable. Waiting for the right timing, her father would interject, the pessimist he was,_ sometimes these chains drag us far too deep below the quicksand, negating our ability for flight._

_What can an immobilized body do when it's trapped and sinking in a pool that contradicts escape? A series of futile struggle ensues, a restless fight for dominance against it, but in the end, the oppressor succumbs to his preeminent fate - and that is to be drowned, or to be saved by someone else._

Then her okaasan would only sip on her Chamomile tea, oblivious and deaf, and her otousama would go on reading the editorials on the **New York Times**, unperturbed and blind. Yuzu would only look at her uncle, forestalling, waiting for the twitch in his right eyebrow that meant he was beyond irritated, usually when his otouto said something stupid, followed by a teme (or baka) and a virulent, sarcastic question. He didn't disappoint her.

_Teme. Who said about you jumping into some quicksand?!_

Nakura wanted to disappear. He advocated her into the idea of both of them soaring lower and lower, to the cement below, from the highest point of a building with their intertwined hands._ Together.. like how our fates were intertwined by this destiny, Scarlet-san_, he would tell her.

But she was living her surrealistic nightmare, the only entelechy of her existence on a foreign land with her distanced loved ones. She wasn't the type to slip away from reality; simply put, dying was never and neither an option, nor a choice. Her intuition told her this, it told her to cling to this life dearly, even if her family was condemned to a macabre roulette of adultery and separation, she would just have to stomach it all because people, at some point in time, will find their affinity to move on, dust the past from their shoulders and start anew.

Not all falls are worth jumping for.

With those principles, on one dim, tantamount night when he finally draws the email asking her to do it with him, she assented.

And it was on that critical spur of the moment her mother came bursting through the door, ignoring all civilized social ethics of a person's unrequited privacy.

"Yuzu-chan!" She had addressed back then, together with the Japanese honorific even if they already had immigrated to New York when she but a toddler.

She narrowly missed the close button of the webpage a second too late.

Imaizumi Mizuki, in her late thirties, beamed at her, a smile too large on her face, _and too radiant_, Yuzu mused. People displayed strange behavioral conduct when something was amiss. Or her mother was really simply happy and all sunshine that point in time.

She swiveled on her three-legged rotating chair to face her, a questioning look directed at her mother.

Hands on her backside, her mother looked at her encouragingly "Oh, I just want you out today. Have a picnic with your friends or something, sounds fun?"

"I'm fine here." She replied, her stoic expression betraying hints of stubbornness in her voice.

"Tsk." She harrumphed, showing her imminent disapproval. "I don't want you to be a recluse in America, dear."

"I ha-"

Mizuki interjected, "I want you to be out and falling in love and doing youthful stuff in the world. That's why I never placed such hard restrictions on your curfew or your love life for that matter. If you want more, why, I even brought you," She whipped both hands to the front, almost shoving a synthetic-smelling, white box to her face.

"Condoms and contra-"

"_No thanks_."

It was a delusional episode.

"Well then, I'll have to kick you out from this point~"

"I'm barely financially stable."

"And you're barely acting the age you are!" She shrieked, all modicum of suppression and control finally unrestrained, the force of her hand crushing the small box on it.

Yuzu's gaze flickered to her okaasan, to the lines on her face, caused by daily laughing and frowning, to the traditional, genetic slit of her eyes and finally to her tired, tired, dark eyes.

Her mother was drowning in her own puddle of emotional diastrophism; mind teetering on the fine line between paranoia, anxiety and semblance of control. Her desperation giving her a lack of sobriety and disoriented control while she unknowingly clings to strangers all around her. And some reach out, teasing and seduced to the prospect of a quick escapade, but, like all uncommitted individuals, they shake her off because they don't want to drown in her puddle.

Ultimately, no one wants to get caught up with a dying man.

Yuzu was her daughter though, and Mizuki was her mother. This family relationship complex of her being was consecrated to both of her parents. She couldn't help but try to haul both of them off their pools of perdition. Maybe it was her mother's maternal instincts pushing her away to the world to prevent her from drowning with them. Maybe this fiasco wasn't her call and that her parents didn't want her to make another quicksand, this time for herself, to drown in.

She respects that.

She sighed, exasperated and giving the fake impression she was annoyed, "Mom," she started, giving her the look telling her not to cut in.

_"I have a friend, and he's inviting me to Ikebukuro. I want to go."_

_And I'm staying there until and so you sort your mess out._

Yuzu stares ahead, to the expanse of one of Tokyo's bustling metropolis before her, Ikebukuro, from the highest, most luxurious suite of the **Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo**. She plants her hands softly on either side of the smooth plane of glass before her and lays her head on it, her eyes squinting at the starless sky to the night-fallen city.

If anything, it looked like the stars fell from the heavens and attached itself to the towering skyscrapers of the city.

Her eyes reflexively drop to the scenery below, to the tiny people on the sidewalks and miniature vehicles on the street, and the height promptly made her mind wander back to the fiasco on the rooftop she had with Nakura. On who he really was, because they never really got each other's names other than their pen names, when they were both busily hoaxing each other.

Like a double-edged sword, both even succeeded in outmaneuvering the other: she and him, with the thought of him and her wanting to disappear, only, she wanted to observe and him, dissect her. No future roof-jumping scenarios on their heads from the beginning. It was a sneaky stalemate that caught both of them off-guarded. Though, he had manipulated the scene in the end.

She recollects what he said, _"Persuade the other person you met who wanted to commit suicide not to do it? Or.. you were really just bored."_

She could have called off her meeting with Nakura. Told him she found the decision to carry on and that she never thought of death as a balm to her situation.

Maybe she really was bored.

It was instantly regrettable, that vestige of curiousness, the moment she looked into this stranger's eyes because all she saw was danger. The rawest vituperative maliciousness compressed into two knowing, black orbs. The pococurante she was, danger wasn't considered a good slice of cake. But the inevitable was done, she had unintentionally tangled herself in this man's web and she knew she had his attention.

She would have to reiterate soon.

D

Light.

Dark.

A different ceiling.

Nothingness.

An expanse of wood.

A void of unending black.

Another reality.

His hands clench the sheets beneath him, brittle, flimsy and Ryuugamine Mikado is afflicted with Insomnia from the newness of it all. Every now and then, his eyes dart around the room, cautious and unbelieving. Like this was some lucid dream he's having back at his provincial home, inside his country bumpkin reeking room. Like the darkness of Ikebukuro in his temporary home would swallow him whole any moment now.

He lifts the blanket higher, nearer and closer to the bridge of his nose.

Maybe he was a scaredy-cat and maybe he wasn't cut out for the big city. Not ready for the mysteries and variety of wantonness the city has to offer.

An offer that exists in an unfamiliar vacuum that extends infinitely, in where he had already plunged himself to, headfirst, and getting deeper while it extended in sinister fashion and _mysterium tremendum_. There was no saving rope to pull him back, back to the recesses of assured security and extreme dullness.

_Yes_, he thinks, the sole word resonating through his mind.

This was all exciting to him.

R

The dullahan drives through the night after a confrontation with Orihara Izaya, motor gears silent and neighing once in a while. It was supernatural and in the eyes and ears of the astonished people in the streets of Ikebukuro, it was a spellbinding, daily occurrence and something deceptively occult but wonderful to behold. If she had wanted secrecy and preferred not to draw attention to herself, she would have to opt for the normal motorbike.

Celty's grip on the handles doesn't loosen one bit, instead it tightens to the point the thin rubber of her suit coating her nails begin to harshly dig crescents on the lower part of her palm.

Normalcy was never an option for her.

So she clings earnestly, afraid and protective, to the only thing vaguely connecting her to the influx of disorganized memories and a haunting, forgotten past.

_Where are you?_

Simon hears the same, distinct sound of a motorbike through the night again. But, neither does it perplex him nor distract him from his work.

He holds up a flyer, "Come. Eat sushi. Sushi good for health." and launches to a repetitive tirade of tireless endorsing and scaring residents inadvertently. No, Simon doesn't complain. He always has this thin, genuine smile, even if his lips were big and he has a large stature that tends to intimidate, in which only the edges of his mouth twist up and is matched by hollow, seeing eyes.

It always confused the people who saw him if he was acting sincerely or it was forcibly business-wise.

He barely notices these thoughts because he's too busy with work. Too busy changing something slowly. Altering an ominous unprecedented fate yet to happen.

_This city is filled with foreigners._

_They come here looking for something, seeking something, wanting to change something._

A couple passes by. "Discount sushi. Eat sushi, yes?"

_It was the same for a certain Imaizumi Yuzu._

Her fingers deftly puncture a number she typed only once on her phone. He could either be sleeping right now or loquaciously debating with a stranger on the streets about anything remotely philosophical that would stench of blatant solipsism to the other person.

Her uncle picks up on the first ring.

"Moshi moshi! Ehehehehe! You've reached the one and only Aristotle of Ikebukuro and vitalist thinker of the century. Allow me- eh, may I know who is this?"

She wets her cold, chapped lips, "Good evening uncle. It's me, Yuzu. I have a favor to ask - and it requires you getting me in to a prestigious Raira Academy."

* * *

_**Our hamartia - the tragic flaw is only beneath the surface, away from our vision and beyond our knowledge.**_

**And yes that is Simon's quote from episode 3 there.**


End file.
